


and maybe the tide will wash my sorrow away

by duracelll



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Gen, M/M, inspired by the al1 trailers, really really vague, some kind of AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 20:32:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11882283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duracelll/pseuds/duracelll
Summary: the line never reaches, and the answer is never found. sometimes, you merely lose connections to the ones you loved, and not all questions are meant to be solved. (au)





	and maybe the tide will wash my sorrow away

**Author's Note:**

> ??? i dont know i kind of wrote this up after rewatching the al1 trailers and bts hyyh mvs because im a mess of emotions who should never be allowed to do anything related to words. i guess it's this? i'm not sure what it is lmao i left the ending kind of ambiguous and pretty much everything open to interpretation.
> 
> status: unedited.

From the open window, Soonyoung can hear the sound of ocean waves crashing into the shore. If he shuts his eyes tightly and focuses a little more, perhaps he can catch onto the soft buzzing noise of human commotion below. He can't. 

He threads his hand through his raven-black hair, knotting and unknotting the thin strands in his grasp. His other hand ghosting over the bar of the wired telephone. It's tragic, he decides, but there's nothing he can do otherwise. 

A loud ringing noise cuts into the air of the quiet room, and Soonyoung’s hand is already catching the telephone to pick it up. Gingerly, carefully, he tugs the wire along to bring the device to his ear. His hands are shaking, he can't help it. Even his voice wavers as he murmurs softly, almost afraid. 

“Hello?”

He hears the audio of disconnection and it presents itself in the form of low-pitched beeps. Even when he hangs up, the sound never entirely leaves his head, he can still hear it in the back of his mind. In fact, he doesn't think he’ll ever be able to forget. 

Soonyoung glares down at the dial pad, calling the number back (what he assumes to be the number), punching in numbers with a renewed frenzy of desperation. The friction of plastic buttons creates a scratch that echoes through the room. It's muscle memory at this point, the number he wants to reach is so ingrained in his head he won't ever be able to forget. 

The beeping is higher now, he holds his breath as he prays to _whatever god exists up there, let the call go—_

_“Sorry, the number you're trying to call is out of service.”_

He hangs up. Slowly, he cracks his eyes open, to which he didn't even realize were closed. Soonyoung knows he's waiting for a call that will never, ever come. 

Maybe he's foolish, maybe he's just stubborn, but Soonyoung doesn't ever stop. _He_ never would, after all. 

-

_He met Jihoon on a windy, cloudy day. It’s so easy to picture the exact scene in his head, the two of them sat as strangers apart from each other at an empty bus station in the evening. They’ve seen each other around, passed by each other in hallways without a second thought, lined up behind the other in a cafe without noticing. They’ve never once spoken to each other._

_Yet, when Soonyoung saw Jihoon shivering in his thin button-up and shorts he felt the urge to do something. If he brought a jacket along today he would have offered that, but he only wore a single-layered sweater. So instead, he has to resort to the woolen scarf wrapped around his neck. Quickly he peeled it away from himself and unwinded it from around his neck, his actions warranted some kind of odd look from the shorter male._

_“Here.” he said, standing there a little stupefied as his outstretched arm held up the scarf in offering._

_“What.” responded Jihoon with a flat tone and a scrutinizing stare._

_“Hurry up,” Soonyoung huffed indignantly, “my arm is getting tired! I’m trying to be nice.”_

_“I don’t know you.” He didn’t budge._

_“Name’s Kwon Soonyoung, now you know me.” He grinned cheekily, “If you aren’t going to take it, I’ll have to take drastic measures by my own hands.”_

_(Jihoon doesn’t ever, ever mention that he knew Soonyoung long before their formal meeting. It’s one of the secrets he still keeps today.)_

_The blond scoffed and turned his gaze away for a second before he heard a soft shuffling sound. Soonyoung was in front of him before he could blink again and carefully wrapping the soft material around his neck and shoulders. He stopped himself from saying anything aloud, because he knew he would start stammering at the (lack of) distance between the two of them. His face is red because of the cold, nothing else._

_“There we go!” Soonyoung took a step back to beam at Jihoon, “... It might not be the best solution, but I hope you don’t catch a cold.”_

_Jihoon might have grumbled and forgotten to thank the elder as they board the bus, but when the next day comes and he steps up to Soonyoung first with the scarf folded neatly and a scrap with digits scrawled on stuck between the wool they don’t make a big deal of it._

_Meetings can happen in the most mundane of ways, the bonds that form between people aren’t discriminatory towards that. Anything can go from singing at the top of the world to crumbling at one’s feet in seconds._

-

Jihoon’s felt-tip marker slides across the window pane as he drags it along the glass. Equations litter the expanse of the surface, incomplete questions that hold no answers. His notebook is long discarded, tossed onto the floor like garbage. It's surrounded by countless sheets of ripped-up, scrapped paper. 

Words, letters, numbers, there's no end to them. And try as he might to make sense of them, to no avail. 

With a sigh, Jihoon turns away from the drawn curtains, his gaze falls onto an open book lying on the coffee stand. The page details about some complex theory that has numbed his brain at one point or another, along with tiny notes in the margin written in black ink. He drags his feet along the way. 

His fingers toy with the edge of the page, contemplating in his head before he flips to the next. The blond scans each and every word swiftly, filtering out useless information. 

Except, it's all useless. 

Jihoon lets out a cry of frustration, he grabs the thick book with his hands and slams it against the wall in one quick motion. And just like that, the anger is gone as soon as it came. In its place, all there is left is a gaping hole in his chest. There's a feeling he's missing, in the midst of all this. It's one thing he won't ever be getting back. 

It's buried at the bottom of the ocean along with the dreams he lost sight of, washed away with the rain. 

He heaves in his breaths, slouching over as he softly pads back to his couch. He picks up his notebook on the way, and rummages for a pen trapped between the cushions. There's always one. 

Jihoon’s recent writing can only be described with words along the lines of ‘indecipherable’. To him as well, sometimes the letters seem like some kind of secret code that he held no encryption key to. He can't even understand himself, so who else could? 

Even so, in the corner of a fresh page, there sits a certain string of numbers. A set that's haunted him for countless amount of days, weeks maybe.

He rips it out, he doesn't see a point. Clenching his fist around the crumpled ball, he tries to erase the ink with his hands alone. It doesn't work, of course, and he's left with an aching feeling of loss. He doesn't need his own pen to remind him of the things he's let go (the things that let him go). 

Jihoon curses himself because the number is still tucked away safely, in the back of his mind. 

He closes his eyes, as tightly as they go. Jihoon has himself convinced that he doesn't tremble as he croaks out.

“I miss you.”

The rain that falls sounds like static to his ears. 

-

_Late night excursions have become a common occurrence for Soonyoung and Jihoon, whenever they have the time and the mood. Neither really enjoyed the chaotic mess of parties, nor the coping of a hangover the morning after. With wrecked sleep schedules, they liked chasing each other up and down the streets in the middle of the night, when most of the city was asleep and the streetlights illuminated the sky. Light pollution made it difficult to catch a glimpse of the stars, but they decided it wasn’t a problem._

_As long as they had each other._

_“W-wait up, Soonyoung!” Jihoon panted, pausing to catch his breath. His hands on his knees as he hunched over, exhausted. Said young man turned around mid-stride, his pace slowed down as he jogged back to where the smaller stopped._

_“What’s wrong, Jihoonie?” He tilted his head in a sort of mocking manner, but his smile radiates warmth as much as his person does. Jihoon swears he wouldn’t trade that smile for anything in the world. “Do you want me to carry you?”_

_“No!” The blond vigorously shook his head, “I just, I just need-- a sec.”_

_Soonyoung laughed in response, a sound that came from heaven itself. And even though they were both sweaty and tired, and loaded with god knows how many shots of caffeine, he couldn’t help but bring Jihoon in for a tight hug. His arms slipped around the younger’s frame, buried his face in Jihoon’s soft hair._

_“C’mon! The night is still young, and the 24-hour convenience store is just around the corner!” Nevermind the fact that Jihoon was practically burning up from the skinship, Soonyoung grabbed a hold of his wrist and began to tug him along. “I won’t leave you behind this time.”_

_The future didn’t scare them, for when they locked their pinkies together as they always did when their nightly adventure comes to a close they swore. It was a promise kept behind closed doors yet always made its way back around to bind the two together in a way only they knew._

_The night was young, and so were they._

_(Soonyoung never mentions how he noticed the small curve of a smile on Jihoon’s face each time.)_

-

To this day, the noiret never learned if promises were meant to be broken or not. He still remembers the sound of a melody being sung on a piano like it was yesterday, the moments they shared. Perhaps it’s hard to hold onto something that doesn’t exist anymore, but at the same time it’s impossible for him to let go. It's a product of both their mistakes, and individually their actions really don't amount to anything.

The telephone rings.

Soonyoung is a slave to his own emotions, he can’t help but pick up even though he knows the only thing that will answer him is a steady beeping noise that he’s come to so painfully dread--

_“Hello?”_

It’s a familiar lilt, a little cracked and dry but it’s still him. 

“Hey.”

Maybe the solution was in their grasp the entire time.


End file.
